Who spends more money on art/entertainment than groceries?
People like me are the reason for the article I guess.
Farmers don't get paid anywhere near the retail price. And that's excluding all the processed food where the farmers get even less as a proportion.
If you include art galleries and bookstores, you should include restaurants and grocery stores right?
The USDA has a chart of household expenditures: food=13%, transportation=16%, entertainment+alcohol=6.2%
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/Charts/58275/agfood-sector_...
Looks like the NEA and the USDA are making reports that make their own sector shine. One talking about household expenditures, the other GDP "contribution". I know I could not convince anyone (or myself) of the significance of the different measurements, but when it comes to "X is bigger than Y", the takeaway for the average reader, the headline and report ring false.
Probably, you didn't point to a conflicting source, so I was just going from the article.
One thing you didn't account for is balance of trade. Art in the NEA definition is probably a net exporter. Food probably not? (you can export raw materials, and you can export the brand. As a non American though, my big mac has never seen America, so I really don't know how that would feed through to those figures). Agriculture also attracts subsidies, that could account for the disparity, although it could increase the disparity so I don't know.
Long story short, the figures don't necessarily contradict each other.